Former UNLV coach Grgurich calls on city and university to support Rice

By Taylor Bern

Sunday, March 15, 2015 | 12:30 p.m.

Four years ago, former Rebels assistant and head coach Tim Grgurich threw his support behind Dave Rice to become UNLV’s 11th full-time coach. Now with rumors swirling about Rice’s job security following a seventh-place finish in the Mountain West, Grgurich is doubling down in a rare interview.

“If they don’t do this the right way, all the people that are with me, we’re out,” Grgurich said. “This town needs to rally around Dave like it did around Coach Tark.”

Grgurich came to UNLV in 1981 to join coach Jerry Tarkanian’s staff, and through 1992 he helped the Rebels reach three Final Fours, including the 1990 national championship. Rice was a graduate assistant on staff with Grgurich during Tarkanian’s final season.

When the internal battles with UNLV President Robert Maxson and external scandals, including the infamous hot tub photo, led to Tarkanian’s ouster, Grgurich went to the NBA to be an assistant. He returned to take over as UNLV’s head coach in 1994 but left after only seven games for health reasons.

Grgurich has been in the NBA ever since, where he's one of the most respected assistants and consultants in the business. Last year, Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle called Grgurich the "godfather of modern player development," but even now the wounds of what happened to Tarkanian because of people within the university feel fresh to him, and Grgurich doesn’t want to see it happen again.

“When I look back at that, that’s why I never came back until they asked me to back up Dave,” Grgurich said. “… It’s hard to have a great program and to keep it there, and we had it. A lot of these people felt we could just wipe it out and start all over. It hasn’t worked that way, especially when you’re disloyal.”

Loyalty is what’s at stake here, he said. Former coach Lon Kruger made a lot of inroads to healing the schism between UNLV’s past and present, including bringing back former players and coaches. That continued under Rice, who might get bought out of his contract a year after signing an extension through the 2018-19 season.

Grgurich said he hasn’t had conversations with Athletic Director Tina Kunzer-Murphy or any of the boosters who were supposedly meeting to discuss gathering $1.2 million for Rice’s buyout, but he wanted them to know how he and other Rebels from the Tarkanian era would react to a change.

“Our bloodline says that Dave Rice has to be our coach right now at UNLV,” Grgurich said. “He has all the young players, and all the misfortunes that happen to a lot of us (happened) this year, and he has a very good recruiting class coming in, which means that they can win and do a very good job next year. And Dave deserves that.

“For 12 years it was our program and we lived and died with it, and I’m living and dying with it right now with Dave and Stacey Augmon. Our loyalty will never, ever quit.”

Augmon, who is UNLV’s third all-time leading scorer, has been on Rice’s staff all four seasons. Before that, he was a player development coach for the Denver Nuggets, where he worked with Grgurich as well as former UNLV assistants Mark Warkentien and John Welch.

Some of those guys and a lot more former Tark players and coaches gathered together in the past month after Tarkanian died Feb. 11 at age 84. Some players from the title team, including Augmon and Larry Johnson, got together and got matching tattoos to commemorate both the championship and Tarkanian. Others, like Rice, shared countless stories about their former coach and what continuing his legacy at the program meant to them.

Grgurich suggested that firing Rice could have a similar impact as the wedge that drove away former Rebels in the early '90s, though he could only guarantee that to be the case for himself. He’s loyal to people but not to the program if it makes a change.

“Dave needs to be our coach,” Grgurich said. “He’s earned it, he has the right to do it and he has the right to bring it around to where he wants it to be. … I want to see Dave be successful. I believe in him. I know what he can do, and he’d be the best thing for this program right now. Now’s the time to be supportive.”

Taylor Bern can be reached at 948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Taylor on Twitter at twitter.com/taylorbern.